White-tailed Deer

Whitetails, extremely adaptable animals, can live in a variety of habitats; the Texas Hill Country is home to about half of the state's more than 4 million deer.

A large conspicuous tail, usually ten inches or
more in length, gives the white-tailed
deer its common name. This tail, which is
held erect when the
animal is nervous or frightened, serves as a warning "flag" to
other deer nearby.
Whitetails are extremely adaptable animals and can
live in a variety
of habitats from pine and oak woodlands to meadows
and even sand
hills. Wherever they live, they are considered resident
animals and have
restricted home ranges. Studies in Texas have shown
that most white-tails
spend their entire lives within a mile and a half
to three miles of their birth
place, traveling farther only during the breeding
seasons.

Woody vegetation is a basic habitat requirement, and
deer eat mostly browse
(leaves, twigs, young shoots of woody plants, and vines)
and forbs (weeds and other broadleaf flowering plants).
They eat very little grass, and
usually only when it is green and tender. Acorns also
are an important food
when they are available.

During the first few months of life a fawn usually remains hidden, camouflaged by its spotted coat, and does not wander far from the spot where it was born.

Deer have a very high reproductive potential, and
most mature females, called
does, will breed each year, giving birth seven months
later. Most
does, when they reach about one and a half years
of age, give birth
to a single fawn. From then on, if enough food is
available, the doe will
have twin fawns each year until she is six or seven
years old.

The fawn is inactive, isolated, and bedded down
for the first few days
of its life, except for the short periods when the
doe visits to nurse and groom it. Its white-spotted,
rust-colored coat helps it blend into its surroundings,
and its near lack of scent helps protect it from
predators. The fawn's spotted coat is shed three
or four months after birth. Twins usually bed down
separately, but the doe may bring them together for
the nursing periods. During the first few months
the fawns usually remain hid-den and do not wander
far from the spot where they were born. As they grow
older, they accompany the doe for greater distances
and longer periods of time, and by fall they travel
everywhere with her. They remain with her until the
next year, when she drives them away before giving
birth again. A deer can live for about ten years
in the wild if it avoids diseases, parasites, accidents,
predators, and hunters. However, by the time it reaches
eight or nine years of age, its teeth may be worn
to the gumline and some may be missing. Old deer
without adequate teeth cannot chew well, especially
the less desirable food that must be eaten when range
conditions are poor. In captivity under controlled
conditions, a deer can live for fifteen to twenty
years.

With the exception of the bison, deer were the most
important animal resource in frontier America, and
both Indians and pioneers were fed and clothed by
it. The white-tailed deer is still the most popular
big game animal for modern-day Texas hunters, and
although few hunters use its hide for clothing, most
of them still enjoy eating its meat, known as venison.
Some are most interested in collecting the deer's
antlers (the bony growths produced each year by the
male deer) and hunt only those bucks with the largest "trophy" racks.

When startled or threatened, the white-tailed deer leaps into action, often lifting its tail to expose the white underside while running for safety. With hairs erect, the tail makes a conspicuous splash of white. It may serve as a warning to other deer or as a beacon to guide the fawns that may be bounding along behind a doe.

Let's take a closer look at antlers,
which are grown by members of the deer family (deer,
elk, moose, and caribou), and at horns, which are
grown by some other mammals. Horns and antlers are
both hard objects that protrude from the heads of
various mammals, but the two growths are not alike.
A horn has a bony center or core. From the base of
it grows a covering of hardened, modified cells called
keratin. (Keratin also is found in such things as
hair, fingernails, beaks, claws, hooves, snakeskins,
and armadillo shells.) Horns are rarely shed and
usually continue to grow throughout an animal's lifetime.
Both males and females may have them, but the female's
usually are smaller and less impressive. Most hoofed
animals – such as cattle, sheep, goats, and
their wild relatives – grow horns. Pronghorn
antelope also grow horns, but theirs are slightly
different. They, too, have a keratin sheath covering
a bony core, but a new sheath grows each year, pushing
off the old one shortly after the breeding season
is over. The male's horns are branched (pronged),
while the female's are smaller and seldom pronged.

Unlike horns, antlers are solid bone
and are grown only by members of the deer family.
Normally only the males grow them; however, female
reindeer and caribous are exceptions. These females
generally use their antlers to push others away from
the best feeding spots, especially when food is scarce.
Males primarily use their antlers for fighting each
other during the breeding season. Moose antlers,
which measure as much as seven feet from tip to tip
and weigh more than forty-five pounds, are the largest
modern specimens, but the extinct Irish elk's were
even bigger. Antlers from this elk, found buried
in the peat bogs of Ireland, measured eleven feet
from one side to the other. The impressive size of
some antlers becomes even more amazing when we discover
that antlers are shed each year after breeding season
and must be replaced with a new set grown the following
year.

A spike buck – one that grows antlers with no forks or points – is usually genetically inferior to the fork-antlered buck and will seldom catch up in terms of body weight or antler development.

To understand just how antlers develop,
let's follow the growth cycle of a normal, well-fed,
male white-tailed deer. As we join him during the
breeding season, his antlers are fully developed
– the hard, polished weapons of a lusty warrior competing
with other bucks for available females. The antlers
are solid calcium, so no bleeding occurs if one of
the points (tines) is broken during combat. When
you consider the impact on the tines as the bucks
clash together and thrash around, it is surprising
they are broken so seldom. Breeding hormones keep
the antlers firmly attached to the head; however,
as the breeding sea-son draws to a close, production
of this hormone stops. The bone at the antler base
(pedicel) then begins to erode or wear away, and
the antlers drop off. Shedding takes place from mid-January
to mid-April, but most mature bucks in good physical
condition have dropped their antlers by the end of
February. Young bucks usually are a little slower.
Once a buck is full-grown he will normally establish
a pattern of dropping his antlers at the same time
each year.

When the antlers are shed, a slight amount of blood
oozes from the spots where they were attached. Scabs
quickly form over the raw pedicels, and before long
only scars remain to mark where the antlers were.
Once the pedicels are healed, new antler buds form,
and the buck begins growing next year's rack. This
growth is initiated by the buck's pituitary gland,
which is stimulated by increasing hours of daylight.
Growth is extremely rapid and requires a tremendous
amount of food. If the buck is able to find enough
high-quality, protein-rich browse to satisfy his
increased appetite and antler-growing needs, he can
produce a full rack in about three months.

Since young deer, like teenagers, are
still growing and developing their bodies, the majority
of their nutritional energy is directed toward body
development, and only the leftover energy goes to
antler development. For this reason, a young buck's
antlers are small and may have only one fork. Mature
bucks need less nutritional energy to maintain their
bodies, so they have more energy available for antler
growth. They can produce a large rack with many points,
or tines, each year. Deer that grow antlers with
no forks or points are called spike bucks.

From the time the new antlers be gin growing from
the pedicels until they reach their full size, they
are covered with a soft skin called "velvet." Tiny
blood vessels in the velvet bring food and minerals
to the growing antlers. If you were able to touch
this velvet, it would feel very warm because of all
the blood flowing through it. This velvet covering
also may help keep the deer cooler in the summer
by bringing some of the animal's body heat to the
surface where it can escape. An antler in velvet
is soft, tender, easily injured, and will bleed if
cut. Bucks make every effort to protect their growing
antlers; a serious injury could produce a deformed
set. Once the three-month, rapid-growth period is
over, the antlers begin to harden (mineralize) beneath
the velvet.

By September the fully developed antlers
have hardened, and the buck's body starts getting
ready for the breeding season. His complex hormone
balance changes, and the blood supply to the antlers
is cut off. The unnourished velvet dies and begins
peeling away from the hardened antlers. As the buck
rubs his antlers on trees and brush, he eventually
rubs off all the velvet, but until this is accomplished,
it is not unusual to see bucks running around with
shreds of dried velvet hanging from their antlers.
Once more, majestic, polished antlers adorn the buck's
head when the breeding season starts. Then, if the
buck is not harvested during the hunting season,
he will again shed his antlers, just as he did the
year before.

By this point you may be wondering
what happens to all those antlers the bucks are shedding
each year and why you haven't found any lying around
in the woods. Once antlers are shed, they don't last
long in the wild. Since they are storehouses
for mineral salts so prized by rodents, they quickly
become food for mice, rats, squirrels, and porcupines.
As these animals nibble away, the antler's calcium
and phosphorus provide nourishment, and the gnawing
action it-self helps keep the rodent's teeth worn down.
Those antlers not eaten are bleached, softened, and
weathered away by the sun and rain until they become
part of the soil. Their minerals may one day provide
the nourishment for a plant that will be eaten by a
buck and in turn provide nourishment for his growing
antlers. So go the cycles of nature.